Government inaction on Windows XP costs €3.3 million

Triangla

Article here from the Irish Indo last year, where: Bill McCluggage, who has been given responsibility for government computer strategy, said that the software giant’s warning -- that it will switch off security support for an estimated 40pc of government computers using Windows XP next April -- may not come to pass

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/governments-information-officer-dismisses-microsoft-warning-over-vulnerable-computers-29465387.html


Fast forward to Feb 2014 and the government now has a €3.3 million bill for extended support.

This will be on top of any eventual future upgrade.

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/state-must-pay-33m-security-bill-after-missing-windows-xp-deadline-30021556.html

Does any government department really try to save a bit of cash?

mikom

Triangla wrote: »

Article here from the Irish Indo last year, where: Bill McCluggage, who has been given responsibility for government computer strategy,

Stand Clear, McCluggage Doors Operating.

EyeSight

The costs will only get higher until they make the plunge and upgrade!
It's ridiculous they haven't already and Microsoft do call out well in advance when they will cease support for an OS

suicide_circus

Public Sector in inefficiency Shocker!

Dont worry lads, it's only the tapayer paying

Peregrine

Over 1 million in the NHS.


No, not the cost of supporting them, that's the number of Windows XP computers the NHS has in England alone. I think they came to a similar deal with Microsoft last week.

Hopefully they'll all start upgrading soon, the cost of supporting them will only get higher.

Mal-Adjusted

Wasn't his response at the time something along the lines of "ah sure it'll be grand. They won't do it"

Triangla

I liked the very end of the original article:

“You’d have to ask whether Microsoft really will turn off their support,” said Mr McCluggage. “There are organisations larger than us [in government] that won’t be fully switched over by then. So the question is whether they mean what they say.”


“I can categorically rule out that we will extend that deadline,” said Patrick Ward, a senior manager for Microsoft Ireland.

Borderfox

Problems with Windows and his name is Bill, strange coincidence

Simon Gruber Says

As with everything in this country it's approached with the "that'll do" attitude. Pumping money into obsolete technology instead of investing in new infrastructure.

MadsL

Look, it was only recently that certain Govt dpatments didn't just transfer Jacinta into the "Computer Department" because she had now been in the filing forms 455D section for 3 years and requested a transfer.

One IT manager I knew heading a Govt Department was consistently banging her head on her desk trying to get even someone who had passed an aptitude test never mind any experience in IT before letting them loose as a systems administrator :eek:.

IT professionalism in Govt exists, but it is a rare beast.

adocholiday

The Government's CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER dismissed Microsoft's warning about XP and now the State have to pay 3.3 million for support. What a complete and utter farce. If that was any company that man would have lost his job on the basis of his first statement alone, let alone costing them €3.3 million

Jobs for the boys again I see. Obviously must be some crony of Fine Gael.

EDIT: I see he resigned, taking effect from this month. Just as well for the sake of the country! http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/state-s-chief-information-officer-resigns-1.1627421

Wouldn't it be great if they followed Munich.

adocholiday

MadsL wrote: »

Look, it was only recently that certain Govt dpatments didn't just transfer Jacinta into the "Computer Department" because she had now been in the filing forms 455D section for 3 years and requested a transfer.

One IT manager I knew heading a Govt Department was consistently banging her head on her desk trying to get even someone who had passed an aptitude test never mind any experience in IT before letting them loose as a systems administrator :eek:.

IT professionalism in Govt exists, but it is a rare beast.

I worked in a Govt. Department and took a career break to go back to college to study an MSc in computer science. I got qualified and went back to the Dept. where I requested a transfer into IT. I was told that there was no place for me there, but I was easily more experienced and qualified than 75% of them. In 2010 they were still using Office 2000! IT is light years behind in the Public Sector, due to a mixture of apathy, lack of money and a complete and utter unwillingness to do anything that might take a slight bit of effort and initiative. I gladly handed in my notice and left them to their stone-age mentalities.

dublinman1990

adocholiday wrote: »

The Government's CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER dismissed Microsoft's warning about XP and now the State have to pay 3.3 million for support. What a complete and utter farce. If that was any company that man would have lost his job on the basis of his first statement alone, let alone costing them €3.3 million

Jobs for the boys again I see. Obviously must be some crony of Fine Gael.

I've have been reading some articles from a computers in businesses magazine from the SBP some time ago. Those articles on the Windows XP switchover are a great read and highly recommended.

I agree with you, it is a farce when you think about it. I wouldn't have any sympathy for them if they had many security hacks creeping into their system until then.

dilallio

The original article was from last year and it turns out that Bill was right.

Microsoft have extended XP support to July 2015.

Based in this, I don't know what the author of the newer article has been smoking.

Irish Steve

The issue is that it's not just the cost of the hardware, it's also the (considerable) cost of the new software, both operating system AND application, and the significant training that's needed for ALL of the users of the machines and the underlying system that's being supported.

The other issue then is that it takes a lot of time to get around all the sites that are using the machines/applications.

In some cases, having 2 different versions of operating systems and application being used to work on the same database and structure can cause all manner of problems, and supporting those differences can be very messy indeed.

Brutal truth, XP was and still is stable and does pretty much all that most COMMERCIAL users need, Vista that replaced it did not, it was not business friendly, and was rejected by many major companies and hardware suppliers, and the migration from XP to Windows 7 (or 8) was not made easy by Microsoft, both in terms of hardware required and in terms of changes to the operating system that in some cases were not needed, but someone decided that they were "a good idea".

It might be a good idea, but if it means that several thousand users all have to be retrained in how those changes impact their day to day operation, that's a serious expense and hassle that ends up costing serious money at the user level, they might only be cosmetic changes, but if they impact the day to day operation, that IS a major hassle for large companies.

It's only now that some of the less helpful decisions made by Microsoft over the last decade are coming home to roost, and in certain areas, it's very clear that Microsoft have been exposed as having operated in a manner that was not always giving the customer the best service or future options, the fact that they have had to back down from their absolute "this IS the end of XP" stance is very revealing, it's Microsoft that have had to blink in the face of substantial pressure from a number of state and corporate entities

In the overall scale of things, €3M to get an extra 12 months of support from Microsoft for XP, given the numbers involved, it's not a bad deal, and it shows that under pressure from a significant number of governments and large corporate users, Microsoft had to blink, simply because there are just too many commercial and government users that are not yet in a position to say goodbye to XP. There are massive numbers of XP machines still in government use in Ireland, the UK and the States, and that's only the countries that I've looked at information for.

I'd prefer not to have to change some of the machines that I support and use, simply because the cost of the upgrade is out of all proportion to the value of the machine in the day to day operation, but I've no choice in the matter, in that I know how certain organisations are going to respond to requests for support on machines still based on XP post April, especially where banking and other "secure" applications are concerned.

The bigger worry to me is the snake oil sales people that are doing their best to persuade small business owners that "the cloud" is the way forward. In brutal reality, given the unreliability of things like broadband, and suppliers, The cloud is exactly that, visible vapour that can disappear at a moment's notice, with no trace of where it was or where it's gone.

I cannot in good conscience recommend cloud computing for critical financial applications like Payroll or accounting, simply because the consequences for business survival of the loss of access to "the cloud" are massive and possibly terminal, and recovering the data and applications in the event of a fundamental failure of a cloud supplier will take longer than the time that's available before the absence becomes critical. Yes, it IS that simple, and anyone that tells you differently is being less than honest about the risks, simply to get a cheap sale.

I've been around computing for over 40 years, and seen various versions of "the cloud" under different names, and they come and go, with varying degrees of success. I've also done disaster recovery for a £15 Million turnover company that lost all it's computer equipment in a flood in the early 80's, and it was challenging, simply because they operated on a weekly cycle, so there wasn't much slack in the schedules, and customers don't like it when suppliers don't meet the commitments they make for billing and the like. Fortunately, the company concerned had very good insurance cover in place to provide cover for disruption of admin facilities, and the eventual claim was massive in the scale of things, sourcing and installing a computer capable of doing the number of invoices they produced per day wasn't easy or cheap, but we did it.

XP will have to be replaced, simply because Microsoft are being hard nosed about supporting it. What has become clear is that there is now a much more vocal and active group of large corporate users looking at open source non proprietary operating systems and applications, on the basis that they can be supported over a longer term, which for things like health care and other fundamental aspects of day to day life is pretty fundamental.

It will be interesting to see if the eventual end of XP will be the change in Microsoft's future that will also be the deal breaker for many multi nationals and governments. I think that's one of the reasons why Microsoft have blinked, and agreed to continue support for some areas, they at last have seen the risks of alienating their largest customers. It's long overdue, the arrogance of Microsoft over the last 10 years has been incredible, and (long overdue) in some respects, the boot is on the other foot, and the customer is being listened to again. Not before time.

Duggy747

dilallio wrote: »

The original article was from last year and it turns out that Bill was right.

Microsoft have extended XP support to July 2015.

Based in this, I don't know what the author of the newer article has been smoking.

No, Microsoft extended support for it's Security Essentials software to 2015, not the OS.

XP's life is still ending in April.

The Snipe

Consider it this way, it works, and they know it works. Upgrading makes it so that there's a very big chance something wont work.

If its not broke don't fix it I'd say is how they are looking at it.

EyeSight

Irish Steve i must disagree with most of your points.
Microsoft offering support at a cost does not mean they are backing down. It means there's a need for a service and they are making money by giving the service. It's still not a viable solution for companies to continue using XP going forward

The cloud is the way forward. Broadband is not unreliable, if yours is then get a different provider.

What are these un-needed changes they introduced which you say are coming back to bite them? Most of the time companies like MS and Apple get a bad backlash for moving forward and pushing customers to do so also. The backlash is just from those unwilling to adapt.

Training for all employees when upgrading an OS? After a few days of using the upgraded OS they will get used to it. Not much usually changes. I understand the need for training if you move from Windows to Linux or the otherway around, but staying with the same flavour is fine.

OS version should not matter if you are using a program to access a DB. If you're having problems here it's because you're using a badly designed application to access the DB.

XP is over 12 years old. They can't support it forever! There's 3 or 4 new versions since then

Dyr

EyeSight wrote: »

Irish Steve i must disagree with most of your points.
Microsoft offering support at a cost does not mean they are backing down. It means there's a need for a service and they are making money by giving the service. It's still not a viable solution for companies to continue using XP going forward

The cloud is the way forward. Broadband is not unreliable, if yours is then get a different provider.

What are these un-needed changes they introduced which you say are coming back to bite them? Most of the time companies like MS and Apple get a bad backlash for moving forward and pushing customers to do so also. The backlash is just from those unwilling to adapt.

Training for all employees when upgrading an OS? After a few days of using the upgraded OS they will get used to it. Not much usually changes. I understand the need for training if you move from Windows to Linux or the otherway around, but staying with the same flavour is fine.

OS version should not matter if you are using a program to access a DB. If you're having problems here it's because you're using a badly designed application to access the DB.

XP is over 12 years old. They can't support it forever! There's 3 or 4 new versions since then

Ah "the cloud"... everytime some blue sky thinker ina meeting makes a lazy reference to the cloud being the solution to all ills i want to punch them repeatedly

EyeSight

Bambi wrote: »

Ah "the cloud"... everytime some blue sky thinker ina meeting makes a lazy reference to the cloud being the solution to all ills i want to punch them repeatedly

I never said it was the solution to everything. I don't see why people can't grasp it's benefits.
Instead of storing everything on a local server in the office(which is usually over intranet), we get more support and "always on" storage from a data center.

I don't know what IT is like in your companies but for some i worked in it was awful! sometimes we didn't have IT, we just had someone who was nominated the IT guy on top of their other tasks

What is it about the cloud that you hate so much?

Dyr

A few years back I had people call me a conspiracy theorist when I was pointing out that they were suggesting hosting sensitive databases in a location where it was entirely legal to compromise their security

Move on a few years...

drake70

Bambi wrote: »

A few years back I had people call me a conspiracy theorist when I was pointing out that they were suggesting hosting sensitive databases in a location where it was entirely legal to compromise their security

Move on a few years...

The Patriot Act?

EyeSight

Bambi wrote: »

A few years back I had people call me a conspiracy theorist when I was pointing out that they were suggesting hosting sensitive databases in a location where it was entirely legal to compromise their security

Move on a few years...

i wouldn't even call that a point...

My opinion: If the decision makers in any company know what they're talking about, they won't run into problems when relying on the cloud for services or when picking OS's or technologies.
Obviously not everything should go to the cloud. Also pick the right supplier(I have no idea what you're talking about but if a cloud company can/will view your files you shouldn't go with them).

Actually knowing what you're talking about, not jumping onto a new technology right away because their salesmen take you for lunch and designing/buying your applications with foresight for the future. All those are how you move forward with technology without running into disaster. Sounds easy but you'd be surprised how many people fail at it

Sleepy

Why pay for the support at all?

Assuming the software licenses were bought on a capital basis, why would you continue to pay Microsoft to "support" a platform that little, if anything, is changing on?

dublinman1990

Irish Steve!

I wouldn't think that there is a reluctance for users of Windows computers to think it is difficult to switch-over to a more modern OS.

If I was talking about using Microsoft Office as an example, my experience of it will be of familiarity. Even if most of the features MS office 2003 and vista/7 are completely similar, the UI between those types of software, yes, are completely different. However IMO that is irrelevant in it's design point of view.

When I attempted a course which I failed in accountancy, applied I.T was offered with it. The modules included were word processing and working on spread-sheets. I worked as hard to the best of my ability in that level of up-skilling. I had gotten myself a distinction in Word processing and a Pass in doing spread-sheet's for only doing two programs in MS Office 2010. That level of up-skilling was quite beneficial to myself and it can beneficial if other businesses & state department's making the switch on time to extend those benefits to their employees.

Things like switching over to a Virtual desktop method wouldn't cost a lot of money. While ditching the idea of switching over to the newer hardware these VDI's from Citrix and the likes have Windows 7 software installed on them rather than have Windows 8. Common sense methods like that would greatly improve for those businesses and maybe the government that are struggling to save money in the short to medium term in many ways as possible.

blastman

EyeSight wrote: »

Irish Steve i must disagree with most of your points.
Microsoft offering support at a cost does not mean they are backing down. It means there's a need for a service and they are making money by giving the service. It's still not a viable solution for companies to continue using XP going forward

The cloud is the way forward. Broadband is not unreliable, if yours is then get a different provider.

What are these un-needed changes they introduced which you say are coming back to bite them? Most of the time companies like MS and Apple get a bad backlash for moving forward and pushing customers to do so also. The backlash is just from those unwilling to adapt.

Training for all employees when upgrading an OS? After a few days of using the upgraded OS they will get used to it. Not much usually changes. I understand the need for training if you move from Windows to Linux or the otherway around, but staying with the same flavour is fine.

OS version should not matter if you are using a program to access a DB. If you're having problems here it's because you're using a badly designed application to access the DB.

XP is over 12 years old. They can't support it forever! There's 3 or 4 new versions since then

This is the most ill-informed claptrap I've read in a long, long time, clearly written from the perspective of someone living in ITFantasyLand. Thanks for the laughs, though.

blastman

Sleepy wrote: »

Why pay for the support at all?

Assuming the software licenses were bought on a capital basis, why would you continue to pay Microsoft to "support" a platform that little, if anything, is changing on?

Mainly because the security holes are still not all patched, and are unlikely ever to be.

The Diabolical Monocle

blastman wrote: »

Mainly because the security holes are still not all patched, and are unlikely ever to be.

Another good reason to get on to

NoDrama wrote: »

Wouldn't it be great if they followed Munich.

Munich

www.techrepublic.com/article/how-munich-rejected-steve-ballmer-and-kicked-microsoft-out-of-the-city/

Irish Steve

blastman wrote: »

This is the most ill-informed claptrap I've read in a long, long time, clearly written from the perspective of someone living in ITFantasyLand. Thanks for the laughs, though.

I laughed at first, then had the awful dawning realisation that he was actually serious.

There are so many holes in that argument, I don't know where to start in trying to bring some clarity.

Clearly, he's never been on the end of a support phone for a major company that's just realising that there is a showstopper issue with an overnight Microsoft Patch that didn't do what it said on the tin, and several thousand users are all unable to do what they are supposed to. Ahhh, such innocence

12 years, that's not very long. Boeing are still installing devices on their aircraft that use 386 processors, Intel had to produce a batch of processors for them not long ago, because none of the newer, faster etc processors have passed the very rigid and rigorous quality assurance tests that are required before a hardware device of that nature is used in an aircraft systems.

So many other points I could pick up on, but I don't think it's worth my while in AH, I'm going to go and sort out some other things that need some attention.

Irish Steve

Irish Steve wrote: »

12 years, that's not very long. Boeing are still installing devices on their aircraft that use 386 processors

Sure isn't DOS 8.0 not one of the most stable OS's and used by many still including our own Navy...